Jeffrey C. Alfier

6. Before the Troubadour Exits : Poems by Jeffrey C. Alfier (2010, 24 pages, read Feb 12-22)

These poems explore the world of the down-and-out in a variety of ways. We meet spent men in bars, strip clubs, homeless, returning unwanted to home. They ogle their drinks and barmaids and anything else female, and get painful emotional kicks for their efforts.

I started looking for Jeff as the “I” in these poems, which was the wrong way to approach it. Once I figured out that these were based on observations more than personal exploration (this took me a long time) the whole book changed for me. I was able to see the collection as a single work.

No One Like You

Instead, this one will finally take
the road out past the fervent lights
that led him here, off toward fields
that slumber under the shuttered light
of a new moon. Puddles he’ll step in
will blur reflections of passersby,
like rain-smeared addresses on
unforwarded mail. No wind rustles
the camphor trees along the promenade
embankment, nor the thinning sea pines
where he’ll amble toward a causeway
that leads no place he hasn’t been
in the blur of his days. In a predawn hour
he’ll hear sirens before alarm clocks
go off and wonder who woke so early
on a Sunday just to die. At his back,
houses will pace through the routines, voices
granting nothing more than a stranger’s
face pressed against a picture window.

2011
http://www.librarything.com/topic/104839#2601470… (more)